Sex Molesters Aren’t Good Artists. Ren and Stimpy Aren’t as Good as Mr. Magoo.
In 1996, I attended my first World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. I went as a writer.
Someone in the dealer’s room was selling Mr. Magoo and other animation memorabilia. I was charmed to see this and stopped to talk to the shop owner.
The man who owned the memorabilia was kind and polite. Two other gentlemen nearby? Not so much. I’ll call them Lardo and Peedapants. They barged in, informing me that my mother couldn’t possibly have designed Mr. Magoo. They rattled off some men’s names — not even Pete Burness, her director at UPA. I said, “Well, I know she did this. Magoo was based on my father...”
Lardo and Peedapants knew better. Back then I was more like normal people and they made me cry. Some of my friends comforted me. They assured me that these guys were just jerks. No one doubted what my mom had done.
It was important to me. See, I never knew my mother. She died of pancreatic cancer when I was three months old. And yes — she’d stopped chemotherapy and any other treatments upon learning she was, unexpectedly, pregnant at age 39.
